The Range Racer
Discussion
Hey All!
We haven't had much chance to work on the car this week.
The only thing we have managed to do is to wire up our switch to the air suspension relay. What this now allows us to do, is to kill power to the air suspension system with a simple switch on the dash. This means we can now drive around in access height all day without fear of the car raising as soon as we go over 30mph.
We have also planned a couple of outings with the beast. We are going to take the car to "caffeine and machine" this Friday afternoon, its a really cool place and really recommend a visit if your in the midlands.
Hoping to also take it out on our next track day to mallory park on the 24th on march (not booked yet but we are very likely to go)
We haven't had much chance to work on the car this week.
The only thing we have managed to do is to wire up our switch to the air suspension relay. What this now allows us to do, is to kill power to the air suspension system with a simple switch on the dash. This means we can now drive around in access height all day without fear of the car raising as soon as we go over 30mph.
We have also planned a couple of outings with the beast. We are going to take the car to "caffeine and machine" this Friday afternoon, its a really cool place and really recommend a visit if your in the midlands.
Hoping to also take it out on our next track day to mallory park on the 24th on march (not booked yet but we are very likely to go)
Hi all
Mini update for you all.....
The weight of the tow bar assembly and exhaust are staggering! Getting lighter bit by bit!
Brakes have arrived just need time to fit them, they really are huge! (glove for reference)
And with the mud guards off, you can start the see the huge 315 rear tyres!
Having driven the car around a little this week, progress is good but the gearbox is not very race car, its a lot better when put into Manuel mode but the sequential shiftier is the wrong way round for a race car! strangely you push it forward to shift up? Anyway, there is only one thing for it.....paddles!! so yesterday we ordered some on ebay, even better, they are from our sister brand jaguar. We have also found paddle extenders which will make them look even more race car! We are optimistic we can just wire these to the switches currently in the gear selector stalk and away we go!
Thanks again for all the comments and ideas we are getting! I'm fairly sure someone on here already mentioned paddles. So much to do, so little time! There is also a mini video of what she sounds like on our instagram and facebook page.
Mini update for you all.....
The weight of the tow bar assembly and exhaust are staggering! Getting lighter bit by bit!
Brakes have arrived just need time to fit them, they really are huge! (glove for reference)
And with the mud guards off, you can start the see the huge 315 rear tyres!
Having driven the car around a little this week, progress is good but the gearbox is not very race car, its a lot better when put into Manuel mode but the sequential shiftier is the wrong way round for a race car! strangely you push it forward to shift up? Anyway, there is only one thing for it.....paddles!! so yesterday we ordered some on ebay, even better, they are from our sister brand jaguar. We have also found paddle extenders which will make them look even more race car! We are optimistic we can just wire these to the switches currently in the gear selector stalk and away we go!
Thanks again for all the comments and ideas we are getting! I'm fairly sure someone on here already mentioned paddles. So much to do, so little time! There is also a mini video of what she sounds like on our instagram and facebook page.
We are back! Sorry it's been so long since the last update, we haven't had the time we would like to spend on it recently, hoping for that to change now.
We managed to get a few things done last weekend.
First thing was to plan some intake modifications, currently the intake comes in though a winding path though the wing, then over the top of the hot engine before dropping down the back into the super charger. Our plan is to have some sort or scoop into the back of the engine bay where we will have a filter, ruling out the need for the over the engine route! To make some space we will also need to move the battery to the boot which is probably a good idea anyway.
To plan for space we had to take off the HVAC filter and tray. My gosh this is soooo heavy so that's going to go too!
We also managed to take off the front door cards, side rails and also put the old dash frame back in to give us something to mount switches etc too, it's only plastic so it doesn't weight too much.
We then took the beast for a spin (videos will be on YouTube), tried to turn off the traction control by disconnecting the ABS module, it works........but then wont allow you to get out of first gear.....back to the drawing board.
We have also been having a think about tuning out our understeer......this will follow in a post soon once I've worked out how to properly explain it!
We managed to get a few things done last weekend.
First thing was to plan some intake modifications, currently the intake comes in though a winding path though the wing, then over the top of the hot engine before dropping down the back into the super charger. Our plan is to have some sort or scoop into the back of the engine bay where we will have a filter, ruling out the need for the over the engine route! To make some space we will also need to move the battery to the boot which is probably a good idea anyway.
To plan for space we had to take off the HVAC filter and tray. My gosh this is soooo heavy so that's going to go too!
We also managed to take off the front door cards, side rails and also put the old dash frame back in to give us something to mount switches etc too, it's only plastic so it doesn't weight too much.
We then took the beast for a spin (videos will be on YouTube), tried to turn off the traction control by disconnecting the ABS module, it works........but then wont allow you to get out of first gear.....back to the drawing board.
We have also been having a think about tuning out our understeer......this will follow in a post soon once I've worked out how to properly explain it!
Understeer......This is going to get a little deep, stay with us.
So the key tunable to help remove under-steer is roll stiffness,
Simplistically:
high roll stiffness = high weight transfer during corning = less total grip across that axle.
So an extremely oversteer biased car would have low front roll stiffness and high stiffness at the rear.
Roll stiffness is largely made up of 3 things (in order of influence): anti roll bars, coil/air springs & all the bushes in the axle. Hence the usual way of changing roll stiffness is though the anti roll bars.
In our application this is more of a challenge, our anti roll bars are already as big as will fit on the rear and we dont really want to put a smaller one on the front, with a CoG as high as ours (we will be back to roll issues). So.....we are back to looking at springs.....at here lies the slightly unconventional idea...
So in almost all cars there are actually 2 springs per corner, the spring itself (coil or air) and the spring aid or bump stop. The bump stops usually have a gap so it doesn't start to get compressed until the wheel has raised towards the body by approx 20-50mm. (spring aid is the pale coloured foam component inside the coil spring)
So interestingly the spring aid also has a rising rate as it is compressed (exponential) rather than a usually a coil or air spring which is "closer" to linear.
Anyway, back to the car, when we lowered the car, we used up all that gap and have partly compressed the spring aid, this results in a much stiffer feeling car and is mainly what helped is reduce our roll so much!
If we were to change the amount we have lowered the car, we can change how much the spring aid is compressed and hence change our roll stiffness!! As the spring aids are exponential, we shouldn't have to change the ride height much to make large changes.
And there you go, a very long winded way to say....we can tune our understeer by slightly tweaking our ride height (lifting the front and lowering the back should give us less understeer)
You are also all correct with suggesting things like wider front tyres & front to rear weight distribution however we expect these to have a smaller affect overall. (we will likely play around with all)
So the key tunable to help remove under-steer is roll stiffness,
Simplistically:
high roll stiffness = high weight transfer during corning = less total grip across that axle.
So an extremely oversteer biased car would have low front roll stiffness and high stiffness at the rear.
Roll stiffness is largely made up of 3 things (in order of influence): anti roll bars, coil/air springs & all the bushes in the axle. Hence the usual way of changing roll stiffness is though the anti roll bars.
In our application this is more of a challenge, our anti roll bars are already as big as will fit on the rear and we dont really want to put a smaller one on the front, with a CoG as high as ours (we will be back to roll issues). So.....we are back to looking at springs.....at here lies the slightly unconventional idea...
So in almost all cars there are actually 2 springs per corner, the spring itself (coil or air) and the spring aid or bump stop. The bump stops usually have a gap so it doesn't start to get compressed until the wheel has raised towards the body by approx 20-50mm. (spring aid is the pale coloured foam component inside the coil spring)
So interestingly the spring aid also has a rising rate as it is compressed (exponential) rather than a usually a coil or air spring which is "closer" to linear.
Anyway, back to the car, when we lowered the car, we used up all that gap and have partly compressed the spring aid, this results in a much stiffer feeling car and is mainly what helped is reduce our roll so much!
If we were to change the amount we have lowered the car, we can change how much the spring aid is compressed and hence change our roll stiffness!! As the spring aids are exponential, we shouldn't have to change the ride height much to make large changes.
And there you go, a very long winded way to say....we can tune our understeer by slightly tweaking our ride height (lifting the front and lowering the back should give us less understeer)
You are also all correct with suggesting things like wider front tyres & front to rear weight distribution however we expect these to have a smaller affect overall. (we will likely play around with all)
Hey all, its been a little while, but we have been a little busy with non range racer things.
We managed to get cracking on a few little jobs over the last couple of weekends.
We have taken off the front end in the hunt for more weight to stripp! Found a few more kgs for sure, the car is currently looking a little sorry for itself, dont worry we will put the bumpers and grill back on!
Brakes, a while ago we got some HUGE 6 pots from the later 5L L322 range rover, we finally got round to fitting them. They have slightly different mounting points to the knuckles but luckily ours came complete with knuckles and half shafts.
Getting the old ones off proved interesting…….every fixing is a fight, Man Vs Rust!! One of the damper to knuckle bolts needed a good 30 mins of heat followed by a sledge hammer!
Anyway eventually they all came off, and we are finally starting to put the car back together. We now have the left side back together and will hopefully get the other side done in the week! |They are bigger than axle stands!
We managed to get cracking on a few little jobs over the last couple of weekends.
We have taken off the front end in the hunt for more weight to stripp! Found a few more kgs for sure, the car is currently looking a little sorry for itself, dont worry we will put the bumpers and grill back on!
Brakes, a while ago we got some HUGE 6 pots from the later 5L L322 range rover, we finally got round to fitting them. They have slightly different mounting points to the knuckles but luckily ours came complete with knuckles and half shafts.
Getting the old ones off proved interesting…….every fixing is a fight, Man Vs Rust!! One of the damper to knuckle bolts needed a good 30 mins of heat followed by a sledge hammer!
Anyway eventually they all came off, and we are finally starting to put the car back together. We now have the left side back together and will hopefully get the other side done in the week! |They are bigger than axle stands!
We got a surprising message on our facebook page a few weeks back, a chap had a full set of links from a L322…...that have all been polybushed! :O
Anyway, of course we had to have them! 220 pounds later and we have the full set, perfect timing too, just as we are changing the knuckles for the new front brakes.
Interested to see how much of a difference these make, all the old standard bushes are extremely soft so our guess is a lot.
We may also end up doing something similar to rear subframe bushes. We have heard stories at work of the L322 during development. The body rolling vs the frame during hard cornering as the rear subframe bushes are so soft! I guess its the price you pay for refinement, but we won't be needed any of that anymore!
Anyway, of course we had to have them! 220 pounds later and we have the full set, perfect timing too, just as we are changing the knuckles for the new front brakes.
Interested to see how much of a difference these make, all the old standard bushes are extremely soft so our guess is a lot.
We may also end up doing something similar to rear subframe bushes. We have heard stories at work of the L322 during development. The body rolling vs the frame during hard cornering as the rear subframe bushes are so soft! I guess its the price you pay for refinement, but we won't be needed any of that anymore!
Matt Cup said:
Would roll centre adjusters be any use to help with geometry when its running its lowest?
Something like this for example (I know the below is for a FWD hothatch but maybe the principal would work for the RR).
https://www.pure-motorsport.co.uk/clio-2-rs-roll-c...
Ahhh i didnt know these things existed, Good find, very interesting idea!Something like this for example (I know the below is for a FWD hothatch but maybe the principal would work for the RR).
https://www.pure-motorsport.co.uk/clio-2-rs-roll-c...
Ours would have be a little more complicated as we have a split lower link or virtual pivot axis (to enable landrover to fit big apposed piston calipers in the wheels).
When i get a chance i shall have a look at how much we would have to move the hard points to recover the roll centres that we destroyed when lowering the car!
Slow said:
Just wondering if you managed to sort out locking the ride height without pulling the relay every time? Looking to go higher and lock it in access for regular ride height.
We have a wired up a switch to the input to the relay, there is a couple of drawbacks.......1) When turning it back on again, the air sus system wont work again until you turn the car off and on again.
2) You will get warning messages while the system is off
3) It appears that the DSC system is linked, so you cant turn off the DSC when the air sus system is off, something we are still trying to find a workaround.
But apart from that it works really well.
Intake, the L322s intake is great for wading but rather floored for a performance car…..
In standard form, the intake comes in somewhere in the wheel arch, though the front wing, though into the air box. We believe this is to allow any water in the air (from wading) to condense before hitting the air box, but does give a rather restricted path.
Then, from the air box, it air then goes over the top of the engine before dropping into the supercharger at the back of the engine. (getting unnecessarily hot on the way!)
Our plan is to make this far more simple. Have a large cone filter in the rear of the engine bay. In the battery box location, and then a simple pipe running across the back of the engine bay straight into the supercharger.
We will have to move the battery into the back for this but that's a good idea for weight distribution anyway.
Step 2 will likely come in the way of a bonnet scoop to try to force more fresh cool air into the back of the engine bay area.
Fear not, filter for mock up purposes only! It would struggle to filter a coffee without being a bottleneck, so not best suited to a charged 4.2L V8! Bigger one on the way!
In standard form, the intake comes in somewhere in the wheel arch, though the front wing, though into the air box. We believe this is to allow any water in the air (from wading) to condense before hitting the air box, but does give a rather restricted path.
Then, from the air box, it air then goes over the top of the engine before dropping into the supercharger at the back of the engine. (getting unnecessarily hot on the way!)
Our plan is to make this far more simple. Have a large cone filter in the rear of the engine bay. In the battery box location, and then a simple pipe running across the back of the engine bay straight into the supercharger.
We will have to move the battery into the back for this but that's a good idea for weight distribution anyway.
Step 2 will likely come in the way of a bonnet scoop to try to force more fresh cool air into the back of the engine bay area.
Fear not, filter for mock up purposes only! It would struggle to filter a coffee without being a bottleneck, so not best suited to a charged 4.2L V8! Bigger one on the way!
We have decided on our change cooler pump upgrade! As we have said before, the rangy keeps going into limp home mode after a small amount of “spirited” driving. This is due to the supercharger cooling system not keeping up.
So we need to upgrade the pump and we may have gone a little overboard! We have got our hands on a BMW electric engine cooling pump which is on a few of there more recent models. Cutting to the chace, we will be going from 17L/min to 200L/min! :O:O Lets hope that will help keep temps down a little.
Pipework is on the way so we can get this hooked up soon to see what sort of affect it has. The pump we have is the CWA400, as you can see its well over speced for charge cooling but hopefully it will help to keep the temps much lower. We shall fit some sensors to keep an eye on what its doing.
We have also started to give the wheels a lick of paint, silver wheels just didn't do it for us! There is no point trying to make a car perform on track if it doesn't look the part too.
So we need to upgrade the pump and we may have gone a little overboard! We have got our hands on a BMW electric engine cooling pump which is on a few of there more recent models. Cutting to the chace, we will be going from 17L/min to 200L/min! :O:O Lets hope that will help keep temps down a little.
Pipework is on the way so we can get this hooked up soon to see what sort of affect it has. The pump we have is the CWA400, as you can see its well over speced for charge cooling but hopefully it will help to keep the temps much lower. We shall fit some sensors to keep an eye on what its doing.
We have also started to give the wheels a lick of paint, silver wheels just didn't do it for us! There is no point trying to make a car perform on track if it doesn't look the part too.
Hey all we are back!
Lots of distractions and lots of slow progress evenings but we have finally got some stuff done, expect a few updates over the next couple of weeks.
While taking off the wheels off for painting. we noticed something strange about the rear anti roll bar drop link.....
The rear ARB had pulled the ball joint out of the drop link! Meaning the rear ARB had not been doing anything.
How many of the cars 170k miles had been without a rear ARB is unknown, but that goes some way to explaining why it has been rolling and under steering so much!
Anyway, new drop link ordered and fitted and we are all good, ish..
In true project car fashion, we fixed one thing and broke another. I somehow managed to damage the rear brake hose during the ARB drop link replacement.
So new rear brake jump hoses were in order too, by the look of the fluid, it was about time the whole system was bled anyway.
Lots of distractions and lots of slow progress evenings but we have finally got some stuff done, expect a few updates over the next couple of weeks.
While taking off the wheels off for painting. we noticed something strange about the rear anti roll bar drop link.....
The rear ARB had pulled the ball joint out of the drop link! Meaning the rear ARB had not been doing anything.
How many of the cars 170k miles had been without a rear ARB is unknown, but that goes some way to explaining why it has been rolling and under steering so much!
Anyway, new drop link ordered and fitted and we are all good, ish..
In true project car fashion, we fixed one thing and broke another. I somehow managed to damage the rear brake hose during the ARB drop link replacement.
So new rear brake jump hoses were in order too, by the look of the fluid, it was about time the whole system was bled anyway.
Sunroof
Time to shed some of that height up weight! The sunroofs time has come to an end.
It's a BIG unit so hoping it should make a difference when it comes to taking this thing back out on track.
This gave us a gap to plug and a friend of ours was just fitting a side window into his transit. Amazingly with a little modification, the window sized part of transit body side fitted the range racers roof like a glove.
A lot of sealant, a leak, more sealant and a little gaffer tape later and we have a nice white sunroof plug.
It will do until we have the money for some sexy carbon.
Time to shed some of that height up weight! The sunroofs time has come to an end.
It's a BIG unit so hoping it should make a difference when it comes to taking this thing back out on track.
This gave us a gap to plug and a friend of ours was just fitting a side window into his transit. Amazingly with a little modification, the window sized part of transit body side fitted the range racers roof like a glove.
A lot of sealant, a leak, more sealant and a little gaffer tape later and we have a nice white sunroof plug.
It will do until we have the money for some sexy carbon.
RazerSauber said:
Ford Transit combines with Range Rover? This must surely be the most obnoxious vehicle on the road 
Loving this project. Taking particular interest because I never managed to drive my Range Rover long enough to get it to a track, let alone hoon it around!
Haha. All i need to do is put my M3 on a trailer behind and i think that's the full. Game, set and match right?Loving this project. Taking particular interest because I never managed to drive my Range Rover long enough to get it to a track, let alone hoon it around!
Paddles 10/07/2019
So a long time ago we got some paddles finally time to get them on the car.
Mechanical engineers playing with electronics is never a good idea (especially electronics as fragile as a range rovers!) But we got there in the end.
A little playing around with a voltmeter, trying every wire near the gear selector coupled with the wiring diagrams, we eventually found the wires in question, quite simple from the car side.
When in manual mode there is 2 contacts in front and behind the gear selector that sit at 12V, when the selector is moved forward or back it hits the corresponding contact and earths it, when then tells the gearbox to change up or down.
So simply cut the wires going to gear selector and link them though our new paddles to an earth and hey presto! We have some paddles.
Sadly the paddles from a jaguar XF are not as simple as just a push to make switch, so we ended up taking them apart and wiring directly to the switch within the paddle and bypassing the rest of the paddle circuit board.
We then bolted the paddles to the wheel (some finishing here required) and then used a telephone cable between the wheel and the steering column to allow the wires to stretch as we rotate the steering wheel.
The verdict, fantastic. So much more intuitive to change with the paddles rather than a backwards sequential box and the change speed isnt too bad (for an auto), it also pops and bangs when you change down early!!!
So a long time ago we got some paddles finally time to get them on the car.
Mechanical engineers playing with electronics is never a good idea (especially electronics as fragile as a range rovers!) But we got there in the end.
A little playing around with a voltmeter, trying every wire near the gear selector coupled with the wiring diagrams, we eventually found the wires in question, quite simple from the car side.
When in manual mode there is 2 contacts in front and behind the gear selector that sit at 12V, when the selector is moved forward or back it hits the corresponding contact and earths it, when then tells the gearbox to change up or down.
So simply cut the wires going to gear selector and link them though our new paddles to an earth and hey presto! We have some paddles.
Sadly the paddles from a jaguar XF are not as simple as just a push to make switch, so we ended up taking them apart and wiring directly to the switch within the paddle and bypassing the rest of the paddle circuit board.
We then bolted the paddles to the wheel (some finishing here required) and then used a telephone cable between the wheel and the steering column to allow the wires to stretch as we rotate the steering wheel.
The verdict, fantastic. So much more intuitive to change with the paddles rather than a backwards sequential box and the change speed isnt too bad (for an auto), it also pops and bangs when you change down early!!!
Edited by charlie-5mkmt on Tuesday 29th October 13:02
illmonkey said:
Won’t the connections take a battering with all the turning of the wheel and the flex moving about?
Also, what are the chest hole makers on the steering wheel for?
Its not too bad, with the coils in the cable its quite easy to firmly hold the telephone cable with some cable ties just before the electrical connections, we have been using them for a while now and had no problems what so ever.Also, what are the chest hole makers on the steering wheel for?
In terms of the bolts, this was just a test fitting stage, before swapping to something marginally safer.
Matt Cup said:
Videos please!
Dont worry, we have lots to come!We took the car to Curborough sprint circuit a while ago, we have lots of go pro footage to sort though then upload (hopefully soon!)
Here is some images for the time being.
|https://thumbsnap.com/h2MDaZIM[/url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/q9k25Neh[/url]
So it's finally time to go back to fat camp weigh in.
Last time we weighted the range racer was back in dec 18 in standard trim
Total 2640
Front 1265
Rear 1370
I remember being quite shocked that a front engined car with a superchaged V8 managed to be heavier on the rear!
Since then we have put her on a modest diet, things removed include:
Side Steps
Seats (replaced by 2 buckets)
dash
Interior trim
Rear tow bar assembly
Rear exhaust muffler
Steering wheel (replaced by racing wheel)
Spare wheel
Headliner
Rear load floor
Sunroof
LOADS of NVH foam
Infotainment system including sub and all 15762447 speakers
Fog lamps
Carpet
And so what's the effect of all that?
480kgs!!!
Total 2160 (-480)
Front 1150 (-115)
Rear 1010 (-360)
Fairly chuffed with all that. Slowly getting back to a 50% weight distribution.
In terms of what weight is left, things from now on will be a little more complicated than just unbolting things sadly. But we have a few ideas as we really want to get the weight out further.
perspex windows
Fiberglass bonnet
Bin the AC system
Bin the air suspension system
RWD and bin the front diff and drive shafts.
Time we tell how much or little of the future list we get round to but for now we are just enjoying the effect of taking 5 people out of the range!
Last time we weighted the range racer was back in dec 18 in standard trim
Total 2640
Front 1265
Rear 1370
I remember being quite shocked that a front engined car with a superchaged V8 managed to be heavier on the rear!
Since then we have put her on a modest diet, things removed include:
Side Steps
Seats (replaced by 2 buckets)
dash
Interior trim
Rear tow bar assembly
Rear exhaust muffler
Steering wheel (replaced by racing wheel)
Spare wheel
Headliner
Rear load floor
Sunroof
LOADS of NVH foam
Infotainment system including sub and all 15762447 speakers
Fog lamps
Carpet
And so what's the effect of all that?
480kgs!!!
Total 2160 (-480)
Front 1150 (-115)
Rear 1010 (-360)
Fairly chuffed with all that. Slowly getting back to a 50% weight distribution.
In terms of what weight is left, things from now on will be a little more complicated than just unbolting things sadly. But we have a few ideas as we really want to get the weight out further.
perspex windows
Fiberglass bonnet
Bin the AC system
Bin the air suspension system
RWD and bin the front diff and drive shafts.
Time we tell how much or little of the future list we get round to but for now we are just enjoying the effect of taking 5 people out of the range!
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